India should now cash in on biofuels: experts

BANGALORE: Experts feel India must capitalize on biofuels.

At a workshop on 'Research opportunities in biofuels', chairman of Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Prof J Srinivasan said there should be a fundamental difference in the approach to biofuels.

"In the West, climate change is a serious concern. They have to reduce emissions, so biofuels are very important for them. In India, we don't have a national mission on biofuels, but we need to work towards it. Engineering colleges should be involved in processing and other scientific areas of biofuel production,” he explained.

Y B Ramakrishna, chairman, Biofuel taskforce, invited research proposals in the sector as he felt different aspects of biofuels are still unexplored. "Around 30,000 ha of wasteland is likely to be cultivated with biofuels by the end of this year and over 2.76 lakh ha in the next three years. It is a debate of energy vs food. In US, a lot of food grains are being converted to ethanol. A huge quantity of corn is being imported by US. This led to spiraling food prices in Mexico. In India, it's absolutely not possible to convert agricultural land as over 110 crore people are to be fed,” he said.

source: TOI